Monday, December 31, 2007

Isn't It Time Muslims Defended Islam?

If you're never heard of Takfiris you soon will for they're the Muslim equivalent of ninjas and they're about to really stir things up in Pakistan.

Like the legendary ninja, the Takfiri is an assassin, but one religiously motivated to slaughter fellow Muslims they judge apostate for failing to embrace Islam strictly as revealed by Muhammed and his companions. Anyone deviating from the path is considered no longer Muslim and, hence, an infidel deserving of assassination.

Asia Times Online warns that a Takfiri force is about to be unleashed in Pakistan:

On the one side are US-backed President Pervez Musharraf and political parties such as Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (now headed by her 19-year-old son Bilawal) and Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League. Against them are al-Qaeda ideologues such as Egyptian scholar Sheikh Essa, who are determined to stamp their vision on the country and its neighbor, Afghanistan. Prior to 2003, the entire al-Qaeda camp in the North Waziristan and South Waziristan tribal areas of Pakistan was convinced that its battle should be fought in Afghanistan against the foreign troops there, and not in Pakistan against its Muslim army. That stance was changed by Sheikh Essa, who had taken up residence in the town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan, where his sermons raised armies of takfiris (those who consider all non-practicing Muslims to be infidels). He was convinced that unless Pakistan became the Taliban's (and al-Qaeda's) strategic depth, the war in Afghanistan could not be won. In a matter of a few years, his ideology has taken hold and all perceived American allies in Pakistan have become prime targets. Local adherents of the takfiri ideology, like Sadiq Noor and Abdul Khaliq, have grown strong and spread the word in North Waziristan. Former members of jihadi outfits such as Jaish-i-Mohammed, Laskhar-i-Toiba and Lashkar-i-Jhangvi have gathered in North Waziristan and declared Sheikh Essa their ideologue. This is the beginning of the new world of takfiriat, reborn in North Waziristan many decades after having first emerged in Egypt in the late 1960s. On the advice of Sheikh Essa, militants have tried several times to assassinate Musharraf, launched attacks on the Pakistani military, and then declared Bhutto a target. This nest of takfiris and their intrigues was on the radar of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the day after Bhutto's killing Sheikh Essa was targeted by CIA Predator drones in his home in North Waziristan. According to Asia Times Online contacts, he survived, but was seriously wounded. Sheikh Essa had only recently recovered from a stroke which had left him bedridden.

Someone has to smash this radical, fundamentalist threat. The West already has its hands full in Iraq and Afghanistan. Venturing into Pakistan could be a terrible debacle. Isn't it time the very nations next in line to be targetted by these extremists - countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt - finally took some responsibility for defending Islam and moderate Muslim states from the ravages of these Islamist Jihadis? It's not as though these countries don't already feel threatened by the Wahabis, they do. The capricious Sauds have been playing both sides of this street for so long that they're vulnerable to the very monster they themselves empowered. It's not only Pakistan's survival that's at stake, it's their own.

4 comments:

The state religion of Saudi Arabia is Wahabism, so I don't expect them to do anything. They and their petro dollars are the main source of funding for groups like Al Queda and this alleged Muslim ninja bunch. The west has buggered up in Iraq and Afghanistan so much, they are actually generating more extremism than they are defeating. They have marginalized moderate states (Jordan, Lebanon and even Iran until two years ago) to the point where they cannot help.

I say, pull out completely, cut off funding and let the chips fall where they may. Trade with the friendly, ignore the others. The only "someone" that needs to smash the fundamentalist threat are the people of the Muslim world themselves. The West's historic interference has actually caused many of the issue not solved them. We need to leave them the hell alone to solve their own problems.

Unfortunately, Mike, I believe you're right. Gwynne Dyer makes the point that Muslim extremists have arisen out of popular discontent caused by Arab dictators (the guys we have supported) who've brutally suppressed democratic movements at every turn. He, too, thinks the answer is to let the ME sort out its own problems, a predictably bloody process that might take three or more generations to complete. While that may be the best course I suspect that control of ME oil distribution is so highly treasured by the US for its obvious strategic advantages that Washington won't back away lest that influence pass to China or the other BRIC states.

I am surprided that liblogs.ca did not pull this, I admire your courage, and thanks for the good post! This is the first time I saw a post at liblogs asking for some introspection on the part of muslims, not saying things were never posted before, I just never saw them before.

Hi Babylon. I don't know that there's anything remotely courageous in this nor did I think for a minute that this post would be pulled by liblogs.ca. Perhaps it's me but I don't think there's anything written that could be seen as derogatory or racist. As Mike said earlier, the Muslim peoples have a lot of things they'll need to sort out on their own - socially, politically, economically and, of course, religiously. They have to work through the same things that our societies and cultures had to tackle, often violently and cruelly, in our own past. I just wish we in the West would let them get on with it.